Orthogonality: Developing a structural/perspectival approach for improving theoretical models

A methodology and tool environment for process analysis and reengineering

A teoria psicanalítica vem nos dizer da constituição de uma estrutura subjetiva, do tornar-se sujeito de desejo, e da importância dessas construções na infância. Entretanto, há uma tendência entre os teóricos a fazer uma separação radical entre a perspectiva estrutural e a perspectiva do desenvolvimento, criando um hiato entre essas formulações, o que dificulta o diálogo interdisciplinar. Partindo desse ponto de vista, discutirei a possibilidade de um diálogo entre mecânica motora e estrutura discursiva, perpassando diferentes cenas do funcionamento psicomotor que determinam a subjetivação da criança por meio de sua construção corporal. Assim, irei me deter nas diferenças e semelhanças entre estrutura e desenvolvimento, haja vista que uma criança se estrutura e se desenvolve.

This study examined the relationships among group process measured by the Group Climate Questionnaire, the Cohesion to the Therapist Scale and Cohesion to the Group Scale, and the Curative Climate Instrument to explore higher order factors that explained the group relationship, in a sample of 91 female university students attending 6 interpersonal growth groups. Furthermore, the study examined how group member’s attachment dimensions, anxiety and avoidance, were associated to his/her perception of group relationship. We found that a three-factor model consisting of positive bond, positive work, and negative relationship, approached conventional standards of model fit. Moreover, the results of the study also supported a model with three latent second-order constructs (bond, work, and negative relationship) and two structural perspectives as first-order factors (member-group and member-leader). Contrary to the hypothesis, the theoretical model on the associations between individual’s attachment dimensions and group process did not fit well to the data. The results of the current study further supported the cross-cultural validation of a model with both quality and structure dimensions of group relationship. Implications for group process research are discussed.

This paper draws on the structural embeddedness perspective to conceptually address the following question: “What is the relation between firm growth and its structural position within a network of multirelational ties?” While the organizational approaches that have adhered to the structural embeddedness perspective build on the implicit assumption that the firm is embedded in multiple inter-firm networks, shaping the set of information, opportunities and external resources available to the firm, most research has focused on a single dimension. Typically, a certain organizational outcome is related to a set of relational variables derived from a single network. Seeking to address this conceptual gap, we develop an empirically testable theoretical model of how structural attributes of the firm, as well as the firm’s absorptive capacity influence the likelihood of firm growth. Asymmetries in growth potential arise because firms engage in multiple network relations that imply diverse access to information and opportunities as well as differential ability to assimilate such flows. The paper contributes two original insights to the organizational literature: first, it illustrates the importance of a multirelational conceptualization of firm embeddedness; second, it advances an original approach to network ties as enablers of firm growth.

Expropriation of large shareholders to minority shareholders has been a hot research in corporate governance. Most of the literatures start their research from the perspective of the ownership structure, large shareholders, shareholders game etc. This paper will bring the large shareholder and the behavior of minority shareholders into the principal-agent analysis framework, and use the theory of new institutional economics to explain the expropriation motive of large shareholder. Finally, we find out the way to inhibit large shareholder expropriation behavior.

<p>This thesis is centred on participatory fan culture in Chinese social media. It investigates how fans gather through social networks, how they produce creative work, and how they use different platforms to circulate their favourite media and fannish texts. By constructing, reshaping and spreading meanings through participatory practices, fans create their own cultures and gradually develop their own discourses. My theoretical approach can be classified as cultural discourse analysis (Carbaugh,2007; Scollo,2011), and I adopted the snowball sampling method to find interviewees and fan communities in which I have conducted observation to collect data for my analysis. On the basis of John Fiske’s concept of “textual productivity” (1992) and Henry Jenkins’s notions of “media convergence” (2006a) and “spreadability” (2013), the thesis is based on a platform analysis as well as two case studies about the Chinese reality TV show Where Are We Going, Dad?and BBC’s crime drama Sherlock. The platform analysis examines four platforms that Chinese social media fans use most frequently: Weibo, WeChat, Tieba and Bilibili. Through the analysis of the sociocultural contexts, user interfaces and primary features of these four platforms, it became clear that the platforms emphasise differentiated content (e.g. microblogging-style posts, instant text/voice messages, continuous updating posts, video clips and flying comments), and that each platform has its own search and recommendation services to guide users to their target content. By comparing five elements of social media including public posts, direct messaging, group chatting, search tools and information recommendation (Yoder and Stutzman, 2011), the analysis offers insight into the different affordances provided by these four platforms and how Chinese fans employ the platforms to develop fan culture. The two case studies investigate the formation, manifestation and influence of fan cultures on three levels: fan-platform interaction, fannish texts and fan identity. Analysing data collected from interviews and online observation in the Weibo-based fan chat group 刘诺一全球后援会1群(Liu Nuoyi Quanqiu Houyuanhui 1 Qun; “Liu Nuoyi’s Global Fan Community, Group 1”) and the Tieba-based forum爸爸去哪儿康诺吧(Babaqunaer Kang Nuo Ba; “Kangkang and Nuoyi of Where Are We Going, Dad?Forum”), the case study of Where Are We Going, Dad?demonstrates that the Web 2.0 services that fans use maintain an open structure, which attracts fans to contribute new layers of meaning and value. Discussing the fan-platform interaction, fannish texts and fan identities, the case study of Chinese Sherlockfandom demonstrates that Chinese online fans rely on textual productivity to establish their fan identities, and Chinese social media to facilitate the production and spread of fan translation, which not only bridges the language and cultural gap between the Sherlocktexts (the BBC episodes and the original novel) and Chinese fandom, but also connects different types of Sherlockfans online. I also compare the two cases from the perspective of narrative structure by drawing upon Jason Mittell’s “centrifugal and centripetal complex” model (2015) and argue that the different narrative structures lead a different sense of self-recognition for fans, gender dynamics, power differences in fan communities, and that they shape fans’ cultural citizenship.</p>

This article summarizes the main contemporary theoretical approaches to international institutions as well as significant theories of institutions, whichbuild upon those approaches. In line with the existing overviews, I focus onrealism, neoliberalism and constructivism. All three approaches differ inregard to both the origin and impact of institutions. Whereas, the basicrealist perspective regards state interests and power to be the main sourceof the institution's origin; the basic perspective of neoliberalism emphasizesthe structure of state interests and collective action problems, which resultfrom it. Many constructivists presume that so called general institutionsdetermine the origin of specific institutions. According to realists, theimpact of institutions is dependent on state interests and power;institutions only regulate state behaviour in a limited way. The neoliberalconception of institutions infers that: institutions significantly regulate statebehaviour since they help states resolve collective action problems.According to constructivists: institutions even constitute state identities andinterests.

Promoting family communication about inherited disease risk is an arena in which family systems theory is highly relevant. One family systems' construct that can support promotion of family communication regarding inherited disease risk is the notion of "kin keeping." However, kin keeping and whether it might be capitalized on to encourage family communication about inherited risk has been understudied. The goal of this report was to propose a broadened conceptualization of kin keeping that distinguishes between a structural functional perspective (role conceptualization) and transitional behaviors (skill conceptualization), and to develop and evaluate a scale that would enable this assertion to be tested among a sample of African American community health workers. We developed a scale using four steps: item development using concept analysis and content validity, scale development among a national sample (n = 312), scale evaluation using exploratory factor analysis (n = 52), and scale reduction. We then posed suppositions of associations that would indicate whether the developed kin keeping measure was assessing a specific family role or set of behaviors. Our results included the development of the first quantitative measure of kin keeping (9- and 15-item scales). Model fit for 9-item scale (CFI = 0.97, AFGI = 0.89, RMSEA = 0.09, SMRM = 0.06) and model fit for 15-item scale (CFI = 0.97, AFGI = 0.89, RMSEA = 0.06, SMRM = 0.05). These findings allow us to move toward more rigorous research about the role of kin keeping on information sharing and health decision making. Results also suggest that, contrary to the historical structural functional conceptualization of kin keeping as a role, kin keeping might also be conceptualized as a behavior or set of modifiable behaviors. Ultimately, the kin keeping scale could be used to operationalize kin keeping in various theoretical models and frameworks, guide intervention development to encourage or train for kin keeping behaviors, and test assumptions of whether families vary in the density of kin keeping.

The traditional approach to Arabic morphology is inspired by a structural analytical perspective whereby words are viewed as a combination of consonantal roots and word patterns. Morphology is about the way words and word parts are processed during word comprehension and production. The nonlinear morphology of Arabic presents three properties that are challenging for current models of word structure, word formation, and word processing. These properties pertain to the nature and grammatical status of its word constituents: the consonantal roots and word patterns, the way these constituents are represented lexically and manipulated by the grammar, and the nature of word formation. The chapter provides a review of experimental data and an assessment of the insight it has allowed into these properties. It discusses how the major theoretical models account for some Arabic nonlinear morphological phenomena and examines the experimental paradigms and experimental data which speak to the questions mentioned earlier.

I develop a theoretical model with empirically testable propositions evaluating the role of alliance networks vis-à-vis that of internal development (product market entry) in the corporate strategies of firms using multimarket competition as a context for a firm’s corporate strategy. I conceptualize the context of multimarket competition using a novel approach through Dubin’s (1978) concept of system states by representing multimarket competition through the phenomenon of industry convergence—blurring of boundaries between individual industries wherein their respective firms did not compete with one another ex-ante but must compete ex post (due to the structural alteration of industry boundaries). I theorize that during lower levels of multimarket competition (low extent of industry convergence), firms utilizing a cooperative approach to corporate strategy (through alliance networks) in contrast to a competitive orientation (internally driven product market entry) have higher levels of performance. I use a structural embeddedness perspective to theorize that during higher levels of multimarket competition (high extent of industry convergence), when a firm has a high degree of centrality in an alliance network, performance will improve when firms use internal product market entry as a competitive strategy. However, if the density of this alliance network is high, then the positive relationship between centrality and the likelihood of internal diversification is negatively moderated leading to a decrease in performance. This model has implications for scholars in corporate strategy in terms of decision making regarding corporate development activities (alliances and internal development) in a convergence driven multimarket competition context.

Milgram’s small-world experiments provided evidence for six degrees of separation, only a chain of five contacts separates any two random people. In theory, this small-world phenomenon is prevalent from a network structure perspective. However, empirical evidence shows that successful message chains are occasional, and the length of message chains are longer than the expected shortest path length. In this project, we construct a “null model” in order to examine how participants’ search strategies impact both the rate at which messages are successful routed and the length of these resulting paths. Using an agent-based modeling approach, we simulate different message routing situations based on the implementation of four different search strategies (i.e., random, memory, identity, and social search) on a network derived from students in a Northwestern University course entitled Collaborative Leadership and Decision Making. We find that the average completion rate for any of the search strategies differs in a statistically significant way from every other search strategy. The social search actually performs worse than if the message had traversed the network in a random walk. Additionally, results show a wide spread in the observed path length for each search strategy. Identity and social searches seemed the most effective for finding short paths, though it is possible that this is an artifact of the relative lack of messages completed overall. As a result, we conclude that simple search strategies may not be sufficient in explaining the empirical result, and that there is likely a more complex interaction taking place. Further, we see a disconnect between completion rate and observed path length, which suggests that many messages may fail to reach their targets as a result of network congestion.

Magma rheology is a key factor in understanding and modelling volcanic eruptions. Until now, macroscopic rheology experiments reveal the viscosity of the magma and conditions at which shear thinning and brittle failure occur. However, it remains unclear what mechanisms control complex magma rheology from the atomic and molecular-scale structure perspective. More specifically, no experimental data on molecular-scale structure have been obtained for deforming magma in the non-Newtonian regime. To resolve this situation, we have developed an experimental system for time-resolved X-ray diffraction and scattering at SPring-8, Japan. Based on the experiments on this system, we found that intermediate-range ordering (IRO), which is related to the size of the ring formed by SiO4 tetrahedra, expands under tensional deformation. In particular, the IRO shows elastic and anisotropic deformation in the non-Newtonian regime. On the other hand, the short-range ordering such as T-O and T-T distances, where T and O represent Si and Al in the T-site and oxygen, respectively, shows no clear change during the deformation. These results imply that shear thinning and brittle failure may originate from the expansion of the ring size because the large ring is relatively weak and its formation results in cavitation. According to this model, the magma fails when the stress is large enough, rather than the strain rate, because the IRO deforms according to the stress applied to the structure. Recent experiments also observed that small and anisotropic rings form under compression. Previous rheology experiments did not confirm the difference between the conditions, at which shear thinning and brittle failure occur, under tension and compression, but the experimentally-determined molecular-scale structure clearly shows different behavior. To fully understand the mechanism of magma rheology from the view of the molecular-scale structure, we need to perform additional studies including the experiments and theoretical approaches.

This chapter presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the positive effects of work on individual and collective health, based on three converging dimensions: biblical foundations, recent scientific findings, and the Social Determinants of Health model by Dahlgren and Whitehead.From a theological perspective, work is understood as a divine gift, a vocation, and a source of dignity.Concurrently, empirical evidence highlights the role of decent, meaningful, and safe employment as a protective factor for physical and mental health, promoting self-esteem, social cohesion, and existential purpose.By applying a theoretical triangulation approach, the chapter integrates spiritual, scientific, and structural perspectives to demonstrate that work not only influences health directly, but also impacts

Soils are fundamental to preservation and sustainability of life- support system on Earth. Soils develop as the most dynamic and complex interface linking atmosphere,hydrosphere,lithosphere and biosphere. Soils harbor enormous diversities of microbial communities as the primary driving forces for global exchanges of matter and energy on our planet. Despite of its profound importance,the invisible soil microbes have for long been underappreciated. In the early 2000s,there has been growing awareness that soil microbiology has attracted huge interest from nonsoil scientists due to the introduction of three-domain phylogeny. It is also known as tree of life theory which is widely recognized as the most accurate reflection of the relatedness of all organisms and provides us with a tool to classify and elucidate the largely untapped resource of soil microbial communities. In January 2005,the Department of Earth Sciences of National Natural Science Foundation of China organized a workshop of ‘Soil Biology and Soil Processes’ with focused discussion on soil microbiology research frontiers. The workshop outlined research priorities,cross-disciplinary research opportunities,technological needs and potential breakthroughs within soil microbiology. This workshop has witnessed the rapid advances of soil microbiology in soil nutrient transformation,global environmental changes and environmental remediation over the last decade in China. This article will give a brief review on soil microbial researches in the past decade in China,present the status quo of funding system and highlight the challenge and opportunities for future soil microbiology in China.

It is more and more evident and widespread the separation between the operating evaluation and the theoretic and methodological teaching of the subject. This paper wants to inquiry into the possible reasons that led to this separation between theory and practise through the analysis of the partial expropriation, one of the most frequent estimative cases that the expert has to deal with. This study has the aim of suggesting a methodological framework able to give back the objective criteria, essential for a good estimative advice. This paper tries to identify the separation points between the estimative method and its practical application, starting from the study of what the literature offers on the theoretic subject and going through the analysis of the estimative expertises done in the professional sector.